Automotive Three-Axis Vibration Testing Is Growing

In our last blog, we discussed our trip to the Automotive Testing Expo in North America, where we exhibited our “Quake” testing equipment and spoke to attendees about new machines in our facility. From chats we had with other professionals and what we’ve seen in the industry, we wanted to highlight a part of the industry we expect to boom relatively soon: three-axis testing.

Typically, automotive vibration testing on a shaker takes place on a single-axis. (For more information on this process, check out our blog post on vibration testing.) It seems more companies are getting increased pressure from automotive giants to start complying with the military-standard three-axis testing on a shaker, as opposed to the traditional one axis singular route. This is big news for our business.

We’ve been offering this newly preferred type of three-axis testing for years, but there weren’t strict requirements from these consumer-geared companies—only for military and aerospace industries. Many of these machines have been purchased from our headquarters in Japan where three-axis testing is required for many products including the Bullet Train. Even packaging companies have seen the benefits in Japan and have purchased entire testing labs from Kokusai LTD. We’re starting to get more feedback in the U.S. on a preference for the higher level of testing, and we believe it’s because of failures in automotive components (especially related to engine areas).

Frequencies at which standard components vibrate are 200 hertz or fewer, which puts it clearly into our quake product line of shakers testing, which can easily handle frequencies 200 hertz or fewer and do three axis simultaneously. Kokusai can handle this upgrade in testing requirement, while other companies can only offer one-axis testing, and much more.

We have plenty of additional information on this process and our other offerings on our website, but please feel free to reach out to us at 317-704-9922 with additional questions.